A PR disaster --- WATCH with a rusty mentality

My boss and his Crisis Management Committee were deeply troubled by a message left in the forum of “SaluteToHKPolice”. The message was supposed to be a screen capture of a Facebook page of one of our alumni. The message was a collection of obscenity and curses against the Hong Kong Police for their recent “excessive brutality” towards the OC protestors. This message has caused more than 2000 feedbacks that criticized the supposed Facebook author. The one who posted this message also included a “background” of this Facebook author: the name of our school, the physical and email addresses, telephone and fax numbers etc.

My boss felt guilty for the obscenity of the language used. How could our students write such obscenity and curses on the Internet? We are a Catholic school and we have failed the public! The school actually received some 7 complaint emails and at least 2 phone calls. At the advice of the CMC, my boss issued a statement which was put up briefly for about four hours on the school webpage, withdrawn after a second thought. Some alumni were unhappy with the stance of the statement and they were collecting money to put up an advertisement on a newspaper to voice their discontent against their alma mater ... It was a PR disaster! This time, we needed to ad hoc a PR adviser, not an educational psychologist as we have usually done.

Jesus told us to WATCH (Mark 13:37). However, we teachers have very little IT expertise and our mentality is rusty. We used to being always right. We knew all.
“We provide students with quality education to prepare them to become citizens with independent thinking and full social awareness in order to play a positive role in the ever-changing world.”
(a partial quotation from the School Mission, ) Sigh!
Even if we want to watch, we are not sensitive enough to appreciate the repercussion of issuing our political stance on the Internet at this turmoil moment. We look but see not, hear but understand not (Mark 4:12). We are not able to understand the reactions of our alumni. We feel lost. My boss is even prepared to quit in order to save the reputation of the school! Once again, rusty mentality.

My Dear Lord, in this season of Advent, open our eyes and our hearts to WATCH with humility. Amen.